Chapter 18 "Anonymous Stories" Seventeen

seventeen She still comes to my room for coffee every morning, but we don't eat together anymore.According to her, she doesn't want to eat, just drink some coffee, drink some tea, and eat some snacks, such as oranges and sandwich candy, that's enough. We also stopped chatting in the evening.I don't know how it could be done like this. Since the day I met her crying, she has treated me a little coldly, sometimes indifferently, even with a bit of sarcasm, and for some reason even called me "my husband".Those things that she used to think were scary, amazing, and heroic, those things that made her envious and excited, but now they can't move her at all. After listening to me, she stretched her waist as usual and said, "Yes, There was a battle near Poltava, my sir, it happened."

Sometimes I don't even touch her for days at a time.I often knocked on her door timidly and responsibly, but got no answer. I knocked again, but there was still silence. ...I can only stand outside the door and listen.Later, a maid walked by me and said coldly: "Mad am eestpartie." ②I then walked up and down the aisle of the hotel, walking. ...there could be seen Englishmen, busty ladies, waiters in tuxedos... I looked long at the long carpet that covered the whole passage, and suddenly remembered that I was playing an odd role in this woman's life. , probably a hypocritical role, and I have no power to change this role.I ran back to my room, threw myself on my bed, thought and thought, but couldn’t come up with anything, only one thing is clear to me: I want to live, the uglier her face is, the more dry, The colder it was, the more I wanted to be close to her, the more intensely and painfully I felt our closeness.Let her call "my sir," let her talk in that casual, contemptuous tone, let her do what she wants, but don't leave me, my darling.I am afraid of being alone now.

Then I went out into the hallway again and listened intently. ... I didn't eat lunch, and I didn't pay attention to how evening was coming.At last, after ten o'clock, the familiar sound of footsteps sounded, and Zinaida Fyodorovna appeared at the corner of the stairs. "Are you taking a walk?" she asked, passing me. "You'd better go out for a walk. . . . Good night!" "Don't we see each other again today?" "Looks like it's getting late. But it's up to you." "Tell me, where have you been?" I asked, following her into her room.

"Where? To Monte Carlo," said she, drawing ten gold coins from her pocket. "Look, sir. I've won. I play roulette." "Oh, you don't want to gamble." "Why not? I'm going tomorrow." I pictured her, sickly and sickly, her waist constricted by her pregnancy, standing at the gaming tables, between the whores and the old crones who see gold as flies see honey.It occurred to me that for some reason she had gone to Monte Carlo without telling me. ... "I don't believe your words," I said one day. "You're not going there."

"Don't worry. I won't lose a lot of money." "The problem isn't losing money," I said annoyed. "Didn't you gamble there without thinking that the glitter of gold, and all those women, old and young, and the dealers, and all that pomp, are all a vile, detestable mockery of the labour, of the toil of blood and sweat?" "What's there to do here, if you don't play?" she asked. "As for the labour, the blood and sweat of the workers, you might as well save those fine words for another time. But now, since you have begun, please allow me to continue. Please allow me to be straight Ask the question: what am I doing here, what am I supposed to do?"

"What should I do?" I shrugged and said. "That question can't be answered right away." "I beg you to answer me in good conscience, Vladimir Ivanitch," she said, sullenly. "Since I've made up my mind to ask you this question, it's not just to hear some clichés from you. I'm asking you," she went on, patting the table with her palms as if in time, "what am I supposed to do here?" ? Not just here, in Nice, but everywhere." I didn't speak, just looked at the ocean from the window.My heart is beating hard. "Vladimir Ivanitch," she said softly, out of breath and with difficulty. "Vladimir Ivanitch, if you yourself don't believe in the cause, if you don't want to do it any more, why...why did you pull me out of Petersburg? Why did you promise me? Why? You stir up mad hopes in me? Your beliefs have changed, you've become someone else, and no one can blame you for that, beliefs are not always our own, but... but Tell me, Vladimir Ivanitch, for God's sake, why are you making a fake?" She went up to me, and went on softly. "I've been telling my dreams all these months, talking a lot of nonsense, being enthusiastic about my plans, remaking my life in a new way, but why don't you tell me the truth, and keep silent, or say something stories to encourage me, pretend to support me? Why? Why is that necessary?"

"It's hard for me to admit that my convictions have broken down," I said, turning around without looking at her. "Yes, I have no faith, tired, discouraged.  … It's hard to tell the truth, it's hard, and I'm silent. Please God don't let others go through what I went through." I felt like I was about to cry, so I stopped. "Vladimir Ivanitch," she said, taking both my hands. "You've been through a lot, you've suffered a lot, and you know more than I do. Please think carefully and tell me: what should I do? Please teach me. If you don't have the strength to go on, you don't have Strength takes others with me, so at least show me where I am going. You will agree that I am, after all, a living person with thoughts and feelings. In a confused situation, ... play a role Such an absurd role, . . . is painful to me. I don’t want to blame you, I don’t want to blame you, I just ask you.”

Tea is served. "Well, how is it?" asked Zinaida Fyodorovna, handing me a cup of tea. "What are you going to say to me?" "There's more than a little light from this window," I answered. "Besides me. There are others, Zinaida Fyodorovna." "Then show me where they are," she said hastily. "That's all I ask of you." "I have something to say," I went on. "There is more than one way to serve ideas. If a man makes a mistake and loses faith in one idea, he can find another. The world of ideas is vast." "The world of thought!" she drawled, looking mockingly into my face. "Then we'd better not talk about it.... What's the use of talking about it?..." She blushed.

"The world of thought!" she repeated, throwing the napkin aside, with a look of indignation and disgust on her face. "I understand that all your beautiful thoughts boil down to one inevitable and indispensable point: I must be your mistress. This is all you need. Thoughts are not the most honest and thoughtful. To be a man's mistress is to be ignorant of thought. You have to start here... That is to say, start with being a mistress, and everything else will follow." "You've lost your temper, Zinaida Fyodorovna," I said. "No, I mean it!" she gasped. "I am sincere."

"Perhaps you are sincere, but you are wrong, and I am very sorry to hear what you say." "I was wrong!" she sneered. "Anyone can say this, but you can't say it, my sir. Just let you think that I am inconsiderate and cruel, and I don't care much about it. I just ask you: Do you love me? Do you love me?" not love me?" I shrugged. "Yes, you shrugged!" she went on sarcastically. "When you were sick, I heard you talking nonsense in your stupor, and then there was always that loving look, that sighing tone! That grand talk about intimacy and spiritual communion. . . . but The main thing is, why have you been insincere? Why have you concealed the truth and said insincere words? If you can explain from the beginning what it is that motivates you to pull me out of Petersburg, then I will I know what to do now. Then I will kill myself by taking poison according to my own will, and there will be no such boring comedy.... Oh, what's the use of talking about this!" She waved her hand at me, sit down.

"You sound as if you suspect me of some dastardly design," I said, annoyed. "Well, come on. What's the use of talking about it. I don't doubt your intentions, but that you don't have any at all. If you had intentions, I'd know. You don't know anything but thoughts and love." No. Now it is thought and love, and in the future I will be your mistress. Whether it is in life or in novels, it is the same. . . . Yes, you often scold him," she said, Pat the table with the palm of your hand, "But one has to agree with him. No wonder he despises all these ideas." "He doesn't despise these ideas, but he fears them," I cried. "He's a coward, a hypocrite." "Well, come on! He's a coward, a hypocrite, he lied to me, and what about you? Forgive me and say: who are you? He lied to me, left me in Petersburg, and left me to fend for myself." Destroyed; and you, deceived me, and left me here. But at least he's cheating without thinking, and you..." "For God's sake, how can you say such a thing?" "I said, terrified, wringing my hands, and hurried up to her." No, Zinaida Fyodorovna, no, that's cynical, you can't despair like that.You listen to me, "I went on, catching on to a thought that had suddenly flashed into my head vaguely, and it seemed to me that this thought could save us both." Listen to me.I have experienced so many things in my life, so many things that I would feel dizzy when I recall them now; but now I have learned with my head, with my troubled heart, that the purpose of human beings is only to love others unselfishly. There is no other mission.This is the way we should go, this is our mission!This is my belief! " Immediately afterwards, I wanted to talk about kindness and forgiveness, but my tone of voice suddenly seemed insincere, and I panicked. "I want to live!" I said sincerely. "Life, life! I want peace, I want quiet; I want warmth, this sea, you by my side. Oh, how I wish I could stir up in your heart this passionate longing for life! You just said For me, as long as I am close to you, hear your voice, and see the expression on your face, I am satisfied..." She blushed, and hurriedly said in order to stop me from speaking: "You love life, But I hate life. It shows that our paths are different." She poured herself a cup of tea, but without touching it, went into the bedroom and lay down. "I think we'd better not talk about this," she told me from the bedroom. "To me, it's all over, I don't need anything. . . . Why talk about it!" "No, it's not all over!" "Oh, come on! . . . I see! I'm tired. . . . Enough." I stood for a while, going from corner to corner, and then I walked out of the room into the passage.In the middle of the night, I went to her door to listen and heard her crying clearly. The next morning, when a servant brought me my clothes, he told me with a smile that the wife in room 13 had given birth.I dressed hastily, and in a panic, I hurried to Zinaida Fyodorovna.In her room were a physician, a midwife, and an elderly Russian woman from Kharkov named Darya Mikhailovna.It smells of ether here.No sooner had I stepped on the threshold than I heard a soft, mournful moan from the room in which she lay.The sound seemed to come to me from Russia in a gust of wind, and I remembered Orlov, his sneer, Polyya, the Neva, the snowfall, and then the carriage without curtains, that morning Omens and desperate cries I saw in the cold sky: "Nina! Nina!" "Come in and see her," said the lady. I went up to Zinaida Fyodorovna's bed and felt as if I were the child's father.She lay with her eyes closed, thin and pale, in a white nightcap trimmed with lace.I remember two expressions on her face, one was cold and weak, and the other was childish and lonely, which was given to her by the white nightcap.She didn't hear me coming in, or maybe she did, and ignored me.I stood there watching her, waiting. But then she changed face with pain, and opened her eyes, looking at the ceiling, as if wondering what had happened to her. . . . she had a look of disgust on her face. "What a nuisance," she whispered. "Zinaida Fyodorovna," I whispered her name. She gave me a cold and weak look, then closed her eyes.I stood for a while, then went out. In the evening Darya Mikhailovna informed me that a girl had been born, but the mother was in a dangerous condition.Then there were people running past in the aisle, making noise.Darya Mikhailovna came to me again, wrung her hands in despair, and said: "Oh, this is terrible! The doctor suspects that she has been poisoned! Oh, how badly the Russians are doing here! " At noon the next day Zinaida Fyodorovna died. "Notes" ① The first line of a poem by the Russian poet Morchanov (1809-1881), which was made into a song and was extremely popular at the time.This poem is used here to ridicule, and it contains the meaning of "a hero does not mention his bravery". ②French: My wife is out. ③A famous casino in Europe is in Monaco, Europe.